I’ve blogged before about the most expensive keywords in search engine marketing. Back in 2009, it was “mesothelioma.”

Of course, that was eight years and a lifetime ago in the world of cyberspace. In the meantime, asbestos poisoning has become a much less lucrative target of ambulance-chasing attorneys looking for multi-million dollar court settlements.

Today, we have a different set of “super-competitive” keyword terms vying for the notoriety of being the “most expensive” ones out there. And while none of them are flirting with the $100 per-click pricing that mesothelioma once commanded, the pricing is still pretty stratospheric.

According to recent research conducted by online advertising software services provider WordStream, the most expensive keyword categories in Google AdWords today are these:

“Business services”: $58.64 average cost-per-click

“Bail bonds”: $58.48

“Casino”: $55.48

“Lawyer”: $54.86

“Asset management”: $49.86

Generally, the reasons behind these terms and other terms being so expensive is the dynamic of the “immediacy” of the needs or challenges people are looking to solve.

Indeed, other terms that have high-end pricing include such ones as “plumber,” “termites,” and “emergency room near me.”

Amusingly, one of the most expensive keywords on Google AdWords is … “Google” itself. That term ranks 25th on the list of the most expensive keywords.

[To see the complete listing of the 25 most expensive keywords found in WordStream’s research, click here.]

WordStream also conducted some interesting ancillary research during the same study. It analyzed the best-performing ads copy/content associated with the most expensive key words to determine which words were the most successful in driving clickthroughs.

Running this textual analysis found that the most lucrative calls-to-action included ad copy that contained the following terms:

Build

Buy

Click

Discover

Get

Learn

Show

Sign up

Try

Are there keyword terms in your own business category or industry that you feel are way overpriced in relation to their value they deliver for the promotional dollar? If so, which ones?

It’s the strongest signal yet that Google’s vaunted business model is spectacularly successful for its core business … but that it’s as ineffective as most other companies when it comes to building the next silver-bullet product or service.

Even Google’s YouTube business unit is likely only a break-even proposition, despite years of concentrated attention, enhancements and tweaking. According to Morgan Stanley’s Brian Nowak:

“We estimate YouTube runs at a 0% profit margin … YouTube’s profitability could [actually] be lower than we estimate, but since it likely varies significantly from quarter to quarter, and until we have more visibility into the business, we believe break-even is a safe assumption.”